Despite relative progress, the latest report makes it clear that the critical shortage of qualified teachers, with less than 75% trained to national standards, is a major culprit behind the failure to achieve the goals.
The 2015 edition of the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report assesses the extent to which the six EFA goals and the 12 strategies agreed to 15 years ago in Dakar have been achieved.
The findings do point to a significant progress: the number of children enrolled in pre-primary education increased by two thirds since 1999, while the primary school net enrolment ratio rose from 88% in 1999 to 93% in 2015. Also, 69% of the countries are expected to reach gender parity by the end of the year, reducing the gender gap significantly.
However, as Education International (EI) has warned over the years, none of the goals will be achieved: 68 million children are still out of primary school, gender inequalities remain a serious concern, and children in conflict or post-post conflict situations remain excluded from the education system. These results confirm the findings of EI’s EFA assessment which clearly shows that the goals miss their mark. The assessment report will be launched at the World Education Forum in Incheon, South Korea, in May.
Education International’s analysis of the report stresses that Governments’ failure to invest sufficient financial and other resources in education has ultimately hindered the achievement of the goals. Therefore, the GMR results are yet another warning to governments who have failed to deliver on their promises, and remind them of the need to support a robust education agenda after 2015. This is particularly important in the ongoing United Nations negotiations on future Sustainable Development Goals that will culminate in September with a new set of targets for the coming years.